“It’s a good cop doughnut because it won’t show up on your uniform,” said Pat Colligan, biting into a jelly doughnut outside Francesca’s Bakery in Pequannock.

A half hour later, the Munchmobile, on a powdered sugar-saturated search for good doughnuts, pulled into a BP gas station/Dunkin’ Donuts in Little Falls, where several cops and sheriff’s officers stood in line for their — well, you know.

“I see a Pulitzer: six cops in uniform and a couple Crown Victorias in a statewide quest for the best doughnut in New Jersey,” Colligan, a detective in the Franklin Township police department, had said. “No Dunkin’ Donut, Krispy Kreme (stuff) allowed. Just home-grown, local bakeries frying up the best jelly and glaze doughnuts around.”

The Doughnut SistersStephanie Melillo and Jennifer Buurma explain why a doughnut - or two - a day can be good for you.

There are no Pulitzers, as far as we know, for best deadline jelly doughnut reporting, but Colligan’s pitch landed him a spot on the Big Dog, along with fellow law enforcement officer Larry Beller, Eric Jensen, whose Facebook page is devoted to food, and BBQ master Doug Keiles.

And then there were the Doughnut Sisters, Stephanie Melillo and Jennifer Buurma, self-described “total doughnut freaks,” who come “from a long line of women who … lived entirely off doughnuts,” according to Jennifer. On a recent trip to Aruba, she and her husband picked their hotel because there was a doughnut shop on the beach.

The Munchmobile driver considers this perfectly normal behavior; there have been weeks — okay, months — where he has practically lived on doughnuts. He went through his Dunkin’ Donut stage years ago, but when DD dropped its plain cake doughnut, enough was enough. His breakfast these days often consists of a couple old-fashioned doughnuts from Wawa, or two sugar doughnuts from 7-Eleven (the same doughnuts at 7-Elevens in Florida are much bigger, but that’s another story). The nearest good bakery to his house is 40 minutes away, which is a good thing, otherwise he’d have to go into doughnut intervention.

Our jelly-filled fact-finding mission turned out to be a six-county adventure with the usual bushel-full of Munch surprises. For what is likely the state’s best jelly doughnut, head to a hole-in-the-wall in Plainfield. The best doughnuts on LBI are at the newest doughnut shop on LBI. And excellent Boston cream doughnuts can be found in a pastry shop hidden in a strip mall in Matawan. No, we didn’t go to Ob-Co’s or Natale’s or Mueller’s — been there, done that, and the Big Dog is not into repeat visits. Even for doughnuts.

Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger.Pete Genovese bites into a jelly doughnut from the Plainfield Donut Shop.

The doughnuts at Francesca’s in Pequannock are seriously cakey; chalk it up to the mix of cake and doughnut flour. Our cops were tough here; Beller found the glazed doughnuts short on glaze, while Colligan called the filled doughnuts “kind of bland.”

But the sisters, and the Munchmobile driver, were clearly on the side of right, if not the law. Buurma called them “good everyday doughnuts,” while Melillo said they tasted “as healthy as a doughnut can get.” The Big Dog’s driver judged them the day’s second best doughnuts. Case closed.

The Packanack Bakery in Wayne opens at 5 in the morning in case you can’t wait until the crack of dawn for your doughnut fix. Buurma liked the “banana-flavored cakey stick-style doughnut,” which is a mouthful any way you look at it. Colligan admired the doughnuts’ “nice subtle deep-fried crunch.” Doug Keiles found the blueberry doughnut, with blue candy sprinkles, “kind of interesting in a pop rock sort of way.” Beller singled out the “incredible” chocolate frosted doughnuts, “where the chocolate clung to the doughnut like Krazy Glue.”

GREAT JELLY

A handful of doughnuts are arranged, almost as an afterthought, along the window at the Plainfield Donut Shop, which is more luncheonette than bakery, with its long counter, eight stools and green walls. We tried a half-dozen different doughnuts — the old-fashioned stood out — then had a doughnut epiphany, right there on the bench we had commandeered on Watchung Avenue. Jelly doughnuts are filled with the same bland goop everywhere, right? Not here; the jelly is a dark, thick, just-sugary-enough spread. Melillo, while judging the doughnuts greasy overall, nevertheless admired the jelly’s “strong punch of flavor.” Eric Jensen came straight to the point. “Great!”

“That was Sparky Lyle coming in on the little cart!” raved Beller, adding a pinstripe flavor to the jelly doughnut.

“I may come back here tomorrow,” Colligan said.

Cops and doughnuts: inseparable. He may have returned the same day, for all we know.

Munch recommendation tips are specific; it’s not, “Eat at Joe’s, the food’s good,” but “Joe’s chili is the best this side of Amarillo.” Reader Leonard DeToma tipped us to the Boston cream doughnuts at EatCake in Matawan, and they’re excellent. The cream is chilled — nice touch, the filling stays fresh. “Fantastic,” Keiles said. Buurma called the glazed “pretty unremarkable,” but sister Stephanie found the French cruller “a pleasant surprise.”

Don’t drive all the way to the end of Long Beach Island looking for Ferrara’s Island Bakery; it’s in Ship Bottom, not Beach Haven, where countless websites place it. “A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand,” reads a sign inside the 50-year-old shop. An even-better-balanced diet? Two doughnuts in each hand!

Ferrara’s claims “the best jelly doughnuts on the planet” but sorry, Ship Bottom, Plainfield has you beat in that category.

Melillo, Colligan and Buurma judged the Boston cream the day’s best, but it’s still not as good as EatCake’s. But Ferrara’s made the day’s best chocolate frosted doughnut; the icing is so good you’ll be licking your fingers like a 3-year-old.

Marvel’s in Beach Haven Terrace “fell in the happy medium — not bad but also not great,” according to Melillo. Colligan was turned off by the ”too-sweet bright white cake icing” in the Boston cream, which he found “strange.” Best bet: the jelly doughnuts.

Doughnuts can’t be any fresher than those at Shore Good Donuts in Ship Bottom. They’re made to order; fill out the order form and take it to the counter. The shop, new this year, is owned by two — get this — plumbers.

The maple doughnut tastes like breakfast in the woods. “I feel like I’m in Vermont,” Colligan said. Every doughnut, according to Melillo, boasted “the perfect amount of frosting,” and none tasted heavy.

Keiles called the doughnuts “bangin’,” while Buurma found them “amazing, delicious, fresh.”

The ultimate doughnut showdown: Shore Good vs. Brown’s in Ocean City for the undisputed made-to-order-doughnut championship of New Jersey.

PB&J in NUTLEY

Can you ever get enough doughnuts? Apparently not, since we were eating them at 5:30 p.m. outside Plaza Pastry Shop in Nutley — this, after a 7 a.m. start. Doughnut Boy — aka the Munchmobile driver — could live on the sugar twists here. The Boston cream is so-so, and the plain glazed is short on glaze. But the day’s most unlikely hit came here. A peanut butter and jelly doughnut sounds like a science experiment, but it was a smash. “Rich and gooey — my kind of doughnut,” an awestruck Keiles said. “Tasted exactly like my third-grade lunch,” Beller added.

Shirts dusted with powdered sugar, lips smudged with frosting, the Munchers walked slowly back to the Big Dog. “Disconnecting my phone and e-mail on the 14th!” promised Colligan, preparing for good-natured abuse from colleagues.

The Doughnut Sisters? Stephanie passed on doughnuts the day after the trip, but not Jennifer.

“Yeasty or cakey, I will be eating a doughnut a day, every day, for the rest of my life,” she vowed.

Peter Genovese: (973) 392-1765 or pgenovese@starledger.com

MEET THE MUNCHERS

Lawrence Beller (Wantage)
Lieutenant, Sussex County Sheriff’s Office

Jennifer Buurma (Westfield)
Major gifts officer, American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey